radcliffe square

I was walking through Radcliffe Square one day when there appeared before me a shiny, classic bus. And people. Classic people! With a bus! All set out perfectly photogenically, as if to test Dave to see if he’s on top of things and carrying his camera today. Well, I am, ha!

And, no, it turns out that this scene was actually laid out for a crew filming the TV series, Endeavour, a frequent sight in Oxford, today using the Radcliffe Camera, the surrounding square, and outer wall of All Souls College as stage setting.

This is so frequent an occurrence, in fact, that there are still more photos to come. Stay tuned …

I have a friend who swears by the Rolleiflex 6000 series cameras, so when I found myself with an opportunity to try one, I did. It was, indeed, an impressive camera; solidly built, with great features. Like slipping into the driver’s seat of a Cadillac. A big draw to the camera was the built in metering system, so I put away the spot meter for my test rolls and used the camera’s readings. They were right on. The optics are Zeiss, my favorite, and the camera’s size didn’t differ dramatically from my twin lens cameras.

I am a lover of mechanical film cameras, though, and this camera was too electronic for me. In particular, the film advance is motorized and quite noisy. As much as I appreciate the 6003 as a professional’s camera, a tool engineered for spectacular results, I do wish it had been designed with a hand crank. In the end, my quiet, simple, non-electric cameras remain a better fit for me.